Good stuff, both your salute to Rick and the challenge to us to think
more creatively....no! ... make that ... scientifically!!!
It's been a long, hot, summer down here, still hot to-day, but here
goes, about personality vs skills:
There is feature of your personality called 'denial'. It, potentially,
afflicts your capacity as a pilot, refusal to accept you've erred,
tendency not to respond to a warning sign, breakdown of situational
awareness under stress, etc..
High denial often manifests as arrogance, of the sort displayed
routinely by mates of mine who were 'Top Gun' fighter pilots. One of
these blokes had been a bank clerk before he joined the Air Force.
There he is, waving his arms around, talking about his personal
greatness, God's gift to aviation. It was while pondering what sort of
a cocktail party animal he'd have become had he gone on to be an
accountant, that I realised that:
There's one element of your denial that is innate, and another
component that is learned, environmentally shaped.
Now the training scientist pricks up his or her ears. We know about
learning, how to teach, decide the objective, select the appropriate
method, and so on. More, this learned aspect of denial is clearly a
way of thinking - a cognitive skill, but a skill nonetheless.
More important, if a skill can be learned, it can be unlearned. Pilots
will begin to become less anxious about probing their deeper neural
recesses - the places where operational habits are stored - if they
know that discovering a less useful autonomous response (euphemism for
'bad habit') will not be fatal to their career. There's no need to be
alarmed at discovering a personal, umm, 'weakness', if you know it can
be overcome, reversed, turned into a strength.
Mind you, 'overwriting' existing learned skill patterns is a sight
harder than ab initio training, ask any flying instructor. But it can
be done! And, it is in coping with such challenges that training does
move away from art form towards legitimate status as a science.
I wrote a whole book about this, and it's hard to summarise the
arguments in a few words. It's basically a self-training manual
through which the individual pilot self-assesses for current denial
responses, then chooses from some prescriptions on how to bring them
under control, so as not to be a problem, in the cockpit.
The training scientists amongst readers know to differentiate between
how skills and knowledge are learned, skills by practice, experience,
and so on. You don't learn (or over-learn) skills by reading books,
only by doing things, exercises, for example. The training scientist
also knows about the training cycle, as applied to skills - check for
existing capacity, do the training, check subsequent capacity, review
the training if necessary, and so on.
Why not try it yourself? Let's say the objective is:
demonstrate the ability to maintain situational awareness under stress
Sit down at a WOMBAT and check yourself out. You will sweat. It is a
superb test of your capacity for situational awareness under pressure.
Then do some of the exercises from my book, then re-sit the test. You
may be surprised. A tip. The harder you exercise the better you get.
Trainers also know that motivation is essential to getting people
willingly to undergo training exercises, especially if discomfort is
involved. For some words on motivation, you can look up my paper at
http://www.caar.db.erau.edu/crm/resources/paper/edwards/edwards.html
As I show in that paper, 'outsiders' will eventually force pilots to
be tested for cognitive resilience and agility - again, the ability to
maintain situational awareness under stress. From the history of pilot
resistance to such things, as Rick has adroitly reviewed, the reaction
could be apocalyptic.
My prayer is that pilots, individually, will sort this issue out for
themselves. Check yourself out. Work out for yourself what it's all
about. Do something about it. Get into shape. When you know you are
'cognitively fit' the test will be a breeze. Waiting until Ralph Nader
forces it on you is not in your best interest.
Whew. I've over-heated the system again! Time for a long, cool, drink.
There's another point I want to make on training and motivation, but
I'll leave that till after happy hour.
Cheers
Doug